A pathway involved in language development is increasingly proving to be important in autism, suggest a series of new studies on cellular and behavioral aspects of the disorder.
Reports published in the last year, as well as preliminary data revealed last week at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, add heft to the idea that the pathway may cause the language and other problems associated with autism.
In 1990, a letter to Nature described a large, three-generation family from London whose members had severe and distinct deficits in applying grammatical rules, and suggested “one dominant gene” as the cause. A decade later, geneticists screening the family pinpointed a gene — FOXP2, on chromosome 7 — that is mutated in family members with language impairment.
FOXP2 codes for a protein that regulates the expression of other genes. Last year, an international group of scientists identified one of its targets, contactin-associated protein-like 2 (CNTNAP2). They also found that certain common variants of CNTNAP2 tend to crop up in people with specific language impairment, a developmental disorder.
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People born without the large bundle of nerve fibers that bridges the brain’s hemispheres have trouble identifying fearful faces, and don’t look preferentially at others’ eyes to perform this task, according to research presented Sunday at the 
